he recently invested in a luxury trailer in
southern Alabama. Even so, Ritchie re-
turns as often as possible to Michigan,
where he owns, in addition to his
sprawling property in Clarkston, a Co-
lonial house on the Detroit River, near
downtown. He is not quite a Detroit
native: he grew up in Romeo, a farm
town nearly an hour away. His father's
main car dealership was in Sterling
Heights, a Detroit suburb, and Ford en-
couraged local dealers to live in the
county where they worked; Romeo,
near the northern border of Macomb
County, was about as far away from the
city as the family could get. But Ritchie
has been drawn to Detroit ever since he
was old enough to sneak into rap con-
certs; he is a Detroiter by choice, and
his civic pride has been fortified by
the treatment he receives. Travelling
through Detroit with him is slightly dis-
orienting. Friends, acquaintances, and
strangers hail him with the same easy
familiarity; he is Kid Rock, or Rock, or
Bob, or Bobby. "It's like going to fuckin'
Disneyland with Mickey Mouse," he
says. His favorite local restaurant pays
tribute to him with a large Badass Beer
mural behind the bar, and the owners
printed up glossy business cards that
they sometimes distribute to overlyen-
thusiastic patrons. The front says, "Let
the man eat his chicken." The back says,
"Let's put it this way: if Kid Rock was
bothering you while you were eating,
we'd tell him to stop too."
One bright autumn Sunday, Ritchie
was riding shotgun in a conspicuous car:
a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted
windows and a "RUN DMC" vanity plate.
Tony Hazard, a good-natured Army re-
servist who is part of Ritchie' s security de-
tail, was driving, heading downtown to
Ford Field, where the Detroit Lions were
playing the St. Louis Rams. At the sta-
dium, a Lions employee greeted Ritchie
and pointed him toward an elevator,
which was staffed by two young Mrican-
American women who hugged him like
an old friend. Upstairs, he headed for
a luxury box belonging to Peter Karma-
nos, Jr., another successful local-he is a
founder of Compuware, and though he
owns the Carolina Hurricanes, he is a
fixture at Lions games. Ritchie is the
godfather of Karman os's baby, which ex-
plains why he watched most of the third
quarter with an infant sleeping on his
shoulder. During one time-out, Ritchie's
face appeared on the stadium video
screen, shouting, "Hey, Detroit, it's time
to get on your feet and make some noise!"
He looked at himself on the screen, ges-
tured at the baby, and smiled. "I hope
they don't get a shot of me now," he said.
As time wound down, Ritchie grew
increasingly concerned: the score was
close, and he was planning to host a
small post-game barbecue; the result on
the field would probably affect the
mood in his house. Then, with less than
two minutes remaining, the Lions
pushed eighty yards down the field to
score a decisive touchdown. Ritchie al-
lowed himself a few minutes of exulta-
tion before heading back out to the Es-
calade, to beat traffic. As he walked out
of the stadium, trailing well-wishers, he
looked around. 'Who the fuck would
ever move to L.A.?" he said.
As Hazard drove back to the river-
front house, Ritchie plugged in his
iPod. "Now we're going to put on our
celebratory song," he said, and he
cranked up "Celebrate," from the new
album. It's a hard-charging track that
gestures back to the time when rock and
roll and R. &B. were fraternal twins. It
could pass for an old Bob Seger B-side,
and no doubt Ritchie would take that
comparison as a compliment. Seger, an-
other of Detroit' s favorite sons, is a hero
of Ritchie's, and the two are good
friends: they share a rehearsal space, and
for almost a decade they shared a man-
"' C I b ' h '
ager, too. e e rate, t at s a monu-
mental track," Seger says. "Oh, my
God!" Seger, like Ritchie, was a big deal
in Detroit long before the rest of the
country took notice, and he still lives in
the area. One day, when Eminem was
visiting Ritchie, Seger came over; in the
kitchen at Ritchie's house is a framed
photograph of the three of them sitting
on his lawn-a family portrait, of a sort.
The barbecue started off quietly.
When Ritchie got back from the game,
a chef was already turning some ribs on
a grill, and a bar had been set up, gener-
ously stocked with Coors Light, Jim
Beam, and almost nothing else. The
house had vintage Detroit streetcar
signs on the walls, and a trophy case
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THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 19,2012 37